EVENT FOCUS
COVIDHAGEN DPA Soundco provides audio infrastructure for an ambitious 24-hour stream on the roof of the Copenhagen Opera House. Project Manager, Ally Kerslake, reflects on the undertaking…
Over the past few months, we have seen exponential growth in streaming culture in the world of live music as well as the level of production that has gone into a number of fantastic shows. However, last month the city of Copenhagen played host to an event that took the content to a whole new level – the roof, to be exact. Hosted on top of the iconic Copenhagen Opera House, CovidHagen, was created to entertain the Danish public who, at this time of year, would usually be looking forward to several months full of festivals. The goal of CovidHagen was to produce a 24-hour stream, all of which was performed from the roof of the building. Brought in to provide the audio infrastructure for the project was DPA Soundco. Sound Engineer and Project Manager, Ally Kerslake spoke of his experience. “The project as whole had some quite challenging, unique and historic elements,” he began, not least created by the fact the performance was to take place on the roof of such an iconic building. “This posed many challenges as the only way up to the roof to load in was a small elevator.
Then through an even smaller stair entrance onto a roof with no real access save to do inspections from time to time and certainly not to have any kind of concert production.” The second challenge was that the vision from the very beginning was to create a ‘stay at home festival’ that would provide 24 hours of nonstop content to be streamed on Twitch. “Crewing and safety was always a priority for me during the planning stage,” reflected the Project Manager. To manage the workload, the show was run by two, 12-hour shift teams, comprising: an audio project leader, broadcast operator, monitor operator, and operator/system alternate for breaks. Also on the roaster for each shift on the roof was a RF Tech, stage tech, stage alternate and an audio trainee. DPA Soundco provided a full audio package comprising an RF and amp station on the roof with all Shure Axient and PSM1000, CODA Audio CUE TWO Bi-Amped wedges, CODA DJ booth/sidefills and all mics and stands. “The power of both the CUE TWO and APS systems was perfect to fire through the windy conditions on the roof,” said Kerslake. He also 18
